International Online Training Program On Intractable
Conflict

Incompatible Frames

Conflict scholars use the term "framing" to mean the process of describing
and interpreting an event. Since so many different factors influence how a conflict is
framed, it is very common for people in conflict to frame the situation in very different
ways, depending on who they are, what their personal situation is, and how what their
hopes and fears are for the future. For example, a school district in the Western U.S.
advocated closing down several schools that were not fully utilized, in order to be able
to sell the buildings and get enough money to finance the construction of several other
schools in locations where the population was growing rapidly and the school were
over-crowded. The threat of closing down schools created a very serious conflict, made
worse by the fact that different people framed the conflict very differently.

Parents in the schools that were going to be closed were very angry. They argued that
their neighborhood schools were the focal point of the community. They did much more than
provide an education, but they provided a center where the entire community gathered for
social events. If the school were closed, the community's sense of unity and closeness
would suffer, as children (and their parents) would disperse to other schools around the
city. Further, they argued, their children would live so far away from the other schools
that they would never be able to socialize much with their classmates and would thereby
remain "outsiders" in their own school. Thus, these parents framed the conflict
in terms of the need for identity and the value of community integration and unity.

Parents in the schools that were overcrowded, however, saw the problem in terms of
equity. It wasn't fair, they argued, that their children were in classes of 30 or 40
children with one teacher, while children at the other schools were in classes of 15 or 20
children per teacher. Their children had a right to an equal education, and the quality of
education has been clearly linked to class size, they argued. Thus, they framed the
conflict in terms of rights.

Voters who did not have school-age children did not care about either of these factors;
rather, they were concerned about money. They did not want the schools to be wasting
tax-payers' money by running under-utilized schools; at the same time they didn't want to
have to pay for new schools for newcomers to the community either. They advocated a tax on
new houses that would have the new people pay for their own new schools, while also
arguing that inefficient schools should be closed.

Not surprisingly, this was a very difficult problem to manage. Many contentious public
hearings were held, and the school board itself engaged in divisive debates. Finally, two
schools were closed, but the board members that made that decision were voted out of
office in the next election, and the community remains divided over where to build the new
schools.

When disputants frame conflicts differently, constructive conflict management is very
difficult. People tend to talk at cross purposes-saying things that are meaningful to
them, but are irrelevant, confusing, or threatening to others. Incompatible frames are
especially difficult when one person or group frames the conflict in terms of values,
while others focus on rights, interests, or needs (or any other combination of these core
issues). Since value conflicts need to be approached differently from rights-based
conflicts or interest-based conflicts, if one party defines the conflict one way, and
their opponent defines it another way, the conflict management or resolution mechanism
will not be the same for both. In order to make any progress in this situation, the
parties must first somehow get together and at least come to an understanding, if not an
agreement about, how each side sees the conflict and what they need in order to feel it
has been dealt with adequately. Sometimes this will yield a more unified image of the
situation; other times it will not. But without at least an understanding of how each
group frames or defines the conflict, the conflict most likely will get worse, not better.

Links to examples of this problem:

John Paul Lederach analyzes the cause of the Persian Gulf war, in part, as a problem of
incompatible frames. The way Iraq saw the problem differed tremendously from the way the
U.S. framed the situation, making negotiation all but impossible.

This is a conflict between the Quebec, Canadian government and the Mohawk tribe over an
extension of a golf course. The Mohawks framed the situation as a violation of their
sovereignty-a rights based issue, as well as an environmental problem. The government,
however, focused on what it perceived to be criminal acts on the part of the tribe, and
confronted the conflict in those terms alone. Not surprisingly, negotiations were not
successful.